Lake Huron

By Brendan O'Brien MILWAUKEE, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The wreckage of a wooden steamship that sank 152 years ago in a storm on Lake Huron with no survivors has been found, a Michigan explorer said. What exactly happened to the Keystone State and its 33 occupants in a November 1861 voyage to Milwaukee from Detroit remains a mystery, said David Trotter, who found the wreck with his crew of explorers in July. The 288-foot side-wheel steam ship hit rough weather and was ...

Most Chicagoans know of Chicago Yacht Club's annual 333-mile Race to Mackinac, which begins its 106th edition on July 18 (cruising fleet) and July 19 (racing fleet). Few know that there's another Mac Race (though this one seems to prefer the spelling Mack). Michigan's Bayview Yacht Club hosts this younger sibling. Its 90th edition starts Saturday, July 12, in Port Huron, Mich., and sails the length of Lake Huron with some sections following a 235-mile Shore Course and...

Do you want to get away from it all? I mean WAY, WAY away from it all? Tucked away on the shore of Lake Huron is a tiny retreat with the somewhat contradictory name of Big Paw Resort. Fortunately, our tracks around Michigan led us beyond the more popular and better known playgrounds on Lake Michigan to the down-home eastern shore. With but seven units, Big Paw carries four prestigious diamonds from the American Automobile Association. Big Paw is made for slowing down, relaxing,...

By Brendan O'Brien MILWAUKEE, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The wreckage of a wooden steamship that sank 152 years ago in a storm on Lake Huron with no survivors has been found, a Michigan explorer said. What exactly happened to the Keystone State and its 33 occupants in a November 1861 voyage to Milwaukee from Detroit remains a mystery, said David Trotter, who found the wreck with his crew of explorers in July. The 288-foot side-wheel steam ship hit rough weather and was ...

This weekend, underwater explorers will be seeking the answer to a haunting mystery of the deep: the identities of three sunken ships whose existence was not known until last summer. The exploration team is headed by celebrated deep-sea archeologist Robert Ballard. He will be employing the same high-tech, remotely operated underwater equipment he used in his discovery this year of the remains of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in the South Pacific. But this time, the cold, dark waters...

As the U.S. Brig Niagara sails toward Chicago for the Tall Ships festival, a team of researchers is aboard, sampling the waters of Lake Michigan for pieces of plastic no more than 5 millimeters wide. Scientists know that these tiny beads, called microplastics, pollute the world's oceans, but the question of microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes is just now beginning to be addressed. Last summer Sherri Mason, an associate professor of chemistry with the State...

Dennis Hale grabbed his lifejacket and ran into the rolling passageway in his shorts. A November wind howled and pounded the empty ore carrier twisting under his feet. Around the SS Daniel J. Morrell, Lake Huron was closing in, its icy grip bending the ship in front of Hale's eyes as it threatened to kill every man aboard. There have been five ore carrier wrecks on the Great Lakes in modern times, the waters claiming 117 sailors between the wreck of the SS Henry Steinbrenner in...

Geoquiz for April 22, 2012 Question: What is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area? Answer: Superior, though Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are considered by some to be a single body of water because of their connection at the Straits of Mackinac.

A rapidly spreading fish-killing virus has been found in northern Lake Huron and is likely to soon spill into Lake Michigan. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS, was identified in the Great Lakes system about 18 months ago. Michigan officials announced recently that the virus had been found in Lake Huron about 20 miles east of where it connects to Lake Michigan. The virus does not affect humans, but it can kill a wide range of fish.

Michigan's Port Huron is a vacation secret. It's also a connection for Midwesterners driving to Canadian destinations, such as Toronto. Instead of taking the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit into Windsor, Ontario, or the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, opt for the Blue Water Bridge from Port Huron, about 57 miles northeast of Detroit. And think about spending some time. A bit less than six hours from Chicago, Port Huron has easy access. Two interstates (I-69 from the west and I-94 from the...

A graduate student got the $64,000 question right, but a game show called it wrong. Now ABC's new quiz show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," is making up for its prime-time goof by giving David Honea another shot at becoming a millionaire. Honea, 31, a doctoral student in computer engineering from Raleigh, had won $32,000 on the new show. But his bid for $1 million, taped Wednesday and broadcast Thursday night, ended with a question asking which of the Great Lakes is the...

Dear Tom, You said Lake Michigan-Huron water levels are within 12 inches of their record low. It's obvious that precipitation causes the level to rise, but what causes it to fall? —John Gleich, Highwood Dear John, Fluctuations in the two lakes' water levels are complex. Runoff (rivers) into the Michigan-Huron system, input from Lake Superior, precipitation, inflow of ground water and condensation directly onto the water surface...

Geoquiz for April 22, 2012 Question: What is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area? Answer: Superior, though Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are considered by some to be a single body of water because of their connection at the Straits of Mackinac.

UNIONVILLE, Mich. -- Madonna is from these parts, but these parts don't take much pride in that. "She said she's from a stinky town or something," a gray-haired pipe fitter said at Trapper John's bar one Friday afternoon while getting an early start on Friday night. Actually, what the pop starlet said back in the mid-1980s was that nearby Bay City, where she was born, was a "smelly little town." She tried clarifying by saying she was referring specifically to a chemical plant.

In the war against sea lampreys that have invaded the Great Lakes, Donald Allen is a combatant. A biological technician for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Allen wades through Freeman Creek with an electrode in each hand. The 70-volt shock from the rods drives the worm-like creatures from their homes in the dark muck, and Allen scoops them up for study later. His catch this day is young lampreys, some only a few inches long. Adults can measure 18 inches, and each one can kill 40 pounds of...

Dear Tom, Someone told me that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are really one lake. Is this true? --Ken Cleys, Woodridge Dear Ken, Though they have long been considered to be two different lakes, geologically and hydrologically, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are actually one lake joined at the Straits of Mackinac. They lie at the same surface elevation, 577 feet, both lakes' level rise and fall together and flow of water between the lakes can reverse through the straits.

Here it is just 10 days before meteorological winter (December-February) 2005-06 begins. A strong upper trough of low pressure is anchored over the eastern half of Canada and the United States. The next 10 days, the center of low pressure will migrate from its present position north of Hudson Bay to as far south as the northern tip of Lake Huron on Nov. 25 and then back north of Hudson Bay by Nov. 30. The persistent northwest flow aloft will steer cold air into the Great Lakes and Midwest with the...

Scientists studying submerged sinkholes in the Great Lakes off the coast of northern Michigan have stumbled onto something they never expected to find: life-forms akin to those found in some of Earth's most extreme environments. As groundwater leaks upward into Lake Huron, it redissolves an ancient seabed and creates a salty underwater environment that is supporting mats of primitive purple microbes -- cousins to bacteria that live in deep-sea hydrothermal vents and ice-locked...

Former Bears star Walter Payton and martial arts expert Chuck Norris will combine their talents Thursday in a speed-boating benefit for the United Way. They will try to break the record for driving a powerboat from Chicago to Detroit. The record was set in 1983 by Michael Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan. Payton and Norris will pilot a 46-foot Scarab over Lake Michigan and Lake Huron with two other crew members. The venture will begin at 7 a.m. at Navy Pier and end at Hart Plaza.